We Are Norstella

Paul Verdin

SVP, Head of Consulting and Analytics

Paul Verdin is SVP head of consulting and analytics at Norstella. He leads the advisory services team across the clinical and strategic intelligence business units.

Tell us a little bit more about your role.

What we do as a team is to conduct consulting projects for clients. The sphere we operate in is helping our clients to develop and execute on their growth strategy, leveraging all the data that we have across Norstella, and we help our clients to achieve their goals through project-based work. My role is at the intersection between commercial and delivery; there’s always a lot to think about in terms of the projects that we’re actually delivering but also working with the commercial team to try and sell the next project. A client may have a business challenge and want help to understand the value of an asset or is going to a conference and needs to decide who best to speak with and who the best partners would be to deal with. We do project work with these kinds of strategic questions.

How did you join the company? What in your background brought you to pharma?

My background is in science. I did a PhD at the University of Nottingham focused on neuropharmacology, so I always knew I was interested in the pharma, biological science, and life science space. But I decided the lab wasn’t for me. Before I came here, I was doing a similar job at Thomson Reuters, then I joined Evaluate at the end of 2015. The company was quite different then – it was a lot smaller for a start – and I came to establish the consulting/services business, which didn’t exist before. My remit was to build that team and that capability from the ground up. We started with a team of three and took it from there.

What does your day-to-day usually look like?

It varies a lot. What I’ll generally be doing a lot of day-to-day is calls discussing either client opportunities or projects that we’re delivering already. I’m used to having to pivot quickly if something new comes up. The team is global and we work with clients everywhere from the US West Coast all the way around to Japan. Being in the UK is nice in terms of being in the middle. I can liaise with both sides and with Europe as well.

What are some of the larger projects you’re working on?

We usually have 40-50 projects active at any one time. By way of some examples, we’re currently working with a pre-revenue biotech to help them respond to the questions they’re getting from investors as they seek investment for their lead programmes, so helping them to tell the value story and defend the revenue potential of the product. Another is supporting a leading global manufacturer with strategy development for a new product and service line that they’re developing. A third example would be working with a top ten pharma company to test some hypothesis they have about portfolio strategy and value generation. Our work spans the full range in terms of client size.

What are some of the common challenges of your role?

The main one is just keeping all the plates spinning, because we’ve got these projects which have to stay on track. We’ve committed to clients that we will deliver this by this day or we’ll give them this outcome, so we have to do that. But then we also have to be able to respond quickly to new opportunities that come in and develop the proposals for those quickly. Doing all of that while maintaining the high standards we have in terms of the quality of what we put out and the experience the clients have is a balancing act, but we always find a way.

What’s been your career highlight to date?

It’s the whole journey, really. When I started at Evaluate, we were a team of just three and the whole company was less than 100 people. Seeing the team grow from that and then evolve through M&A, combining with the Citeline team, seeing how our scale, capacity, and capability have all grown – that whole journey is the highlight if you can have a ten-year highlight!

What trends are you seeing across the industry right now that Norstella is in a unique position to help with?

There’s always the latest hot topic, whether it’s the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the emergence of China, AI, new modalities, or whatever it might be. Our work is in a way smoothing that out and helping our clients make effective decisions for their companies with the resources they have at their disposal. That’s as true of a very small biotech as a large pharma company. They’ve still got to make these decisions, and I think it’s the scale, reach, and combined resources and capabilities of Norstella puts it in a strong position. In a consulting/advisory team like ours, we’re always looking for new data sets, new tools, and new things to make. For example, having an expanding toolkit across Norstella like real-world data is an advantage.

Which company principle resonates most with you?

I feel like I’ve still got a lot to learn learning every day from the team, from the people around the business. So I’ll pick on gratitude, learning and humility.

What do you tell someone just starting their career with Norstella?

I’d like to think our team’s got a fairly flat structure. Anyone can speak up about anything, but I’m thinking about it more broadly, so I’d probably just say ‘Go for it’. Take advantage of the opportunities available in a company the size of Norstella. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas because people want to hear them.

Where do you see Norstella in the next year or two?

I think we’re only just getting started in terms of joining up the pieces of the puzzle from the different businesses that have come together. I feel the company will continue to go from strength to strength, capitalizing on that scale in the different data assets we’ve got. We’re already using AI to do the ‘1+1=3’ type of stuff. I see the company continuing to do that. When we speak to potential and current customers, it is surprizing how often you hear things like ‘We didn’t know you could do this’ or ‘You’re the only company that can do all of this’. I’ve heard both of those statements in the last couple of weeks. That to me indicates there’s a lot of opportunity out there for the company.

What do you like most about working at Norstella?

I like the variety of the projects we are working on. I expect everyone says this but the people within the team and outside the team I work with are also what makes it good to work here.

What do you like to do outside work?

I’ve got two young kids, aged nine and seven, so they take up all my time! We like to do stuff together as a family, but I don’t find a lot of time for myself individually anymore.

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